One thing I have not seen (yet) is WHEN did the shooter obtain his weapons??
Days? weeks? months? YEARS??? before the attack???
I saw a headline that said his wife said she tried to talk him out of the attack. If this is so, and she didn't report what he was planning to do to the authorities, should she not be charged, and go to jail???
The people McVeigh stayed with got YEARS of jail time for not warning the Feds about his planned bombing attack. Their defense (and I believe an honest one) was that they didn't believe he was serious. Didn't matter, they were convicted and sent to jail. If the wife believed he was serious (and if not, why try to talk him out of it??), and didn't warn anyone she should be legally liable. Equal treatment under the law, and all that...
ok, here we go,
We might consider passing a law that anyone on an (Islamic only) terror watch list cannot buy a gun. I would include spouses and siblings on that watch list.
Better include yourself (and everyone else) on that list. If we can link anyone to Kevin Bacon is six or seven steps, we can link anyone to terrorism (Islamic inspired or not) in a few steps, and if given the authority to do so, our government WILL.
Did we allow Japanese immigration during WWII?
As POWs.
Sort of a slightly different situation, being at war with a nation state, fighting the military of that state, who is acting under the direction of their government.
The War on Terror is NOT against any recognized nation, and its armed forces. It is against what is essentially a religious cult. NOT even close to the same thing.
I absolutely agree with doing a very thorough background check, and even a hint of the possibility of being a radical Islamist would bar them from entry into our country. I do not believe background checks today are thorough enough.
NO background check can be "thorough enough" to prevent some FUTURE action. And, just WHO gets to decide what a "hint" of radical Islam is???
At least two of the identified terrorists in the recent attacks in France were registered refugees, supposedly already "checked" and "cleared".
We do not have the resources to ACTUALLY check the real backgrounds of people from these Islamic areas. We're doing good to find some kind of documentation (of who knows what level of value and authenticity) to match them with who they claim to be.
I think most here would agree that someone on the terror watch list shouldn't be able to purchase firearms
Jawohl, Herr Oberguppenfuehrer!!
Secret lists, denying fundamental rights (arms, free speech, TRAVEL) without any due process, or recourse, without public knowledge, all to keep us "safe"?
Sounds like a fine idea, until you find out that YOU are on that list, too....
(and if you aren't right now, rest assured at some point later, you (and I) will be.)
Why not just round them all up and put them in camps? Like we did the Japanese (and suspected Japanese) in WWII???
We were
WRONG to have done that, then, and we would be even more in the wrong if we did it today.
Just to be clear: You would support willful disregard of the first amendment to curtail the second amendment rights of some individuals while also ignoring the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment.
After you are done what are you going to cite as protection for your individual right to arms? You surely would not have the audacity to cite the Constitution at that point right?
And somewhere in here you are willing to deny legal rights to people whose only guilt is relation to someone on a watch list that does not involve any conviction (or even any actual accusation of a crime) just a suspicion of possible future crimes?
This sums it up pretty well. IF we allow fear to turn us into our own version of 1937 Germany, the bad guys win.
I say "NO" to secret lists, "NO" to guilty until proven innocent, "NO" to those who would push us into a police state, in the belief it would make them "safer".
Be a grown up, accept the simple fact that the only thing that will stop these people is PROPERLY IDENTIFYING the root cause that creates them, and removing that root cause. I refuse to believe that millions of firearms in the hands of law abiding US citizens are the root cause of Islamic terrorism.
Also remember that all the backlash and hate these fanatics can generate in us, against the people and culture they hide amongst, also supports their cause.
I say we are better served by sticking to the rule of law, (as it currently exists) and accept that we cannot be perfectly protected everywhere 24/7.
Changing the law, to make it "easier" to stop these people won't stop all of them, may not stop any, and WILL come back to bite us in the butt later, when some future political movement applies the "terrorist rules" against whomever is the political opponent of the hour.
WE REALLY SHOULD NOT GO THERE.
